The Clock Tower
by OliveTheOlive
Summary: Kaito returns to Tokyo after many years. This tower was always a place for meetings, but that surprise and life is gone. A one-shot with your daily dose of Angst.


Disclaimer: Me no own! Characters are the property of the almighty Gosho!

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The Clock Tower

Kaito walked through the city, not really caring where his feet took him. He just repeated the motion of one step in front of another in front of another. What did it matter where he ended up? Everything was the same as it had always been – different, but the same. There was nothing new to see.

It took him a few minutes to realize just where his feet had brought him. A familiar clock tower loomed in front of him. It was almost ironic.

This tower had been a place for meetings, for beginnings. He could still remember the little girl he met in front of this tower, a long time ago, and the young woman she grew into.

He could remember his first encounter with a mind that rivaled his own. Even if he hadn't learned it until much later, this was the place where he first faced off against Kudo Shinichi.

This place had always been bursting with surprise when Kaito was young, or rather when he was young in years, and not just appearance. Of course, they were dead now, all the people he had met here, and that life and surprise was as well. It felt like looking at a shell, or a ghost maybe.

He shouldn't have come back to Tokyo. There were too many memories here. _And apparently not even eighty years is enough to forget them,_ he thought bitterly.

He turned to go, and nearly tripped over something. _Oops. Someone,_ he corrected himself. He quickly threw up a cheerful smile and offered a hand to the kid…

"Sorry, didn't see you—"

…And froze as a pair of very familiar bespectacled eyes looked back at him.

_Tantei-kun?_

Edogawa Conan, or Kudou Shinichi, or whatever the hell he was calling himself at the moment looked a little surprised at running into him. _Which is weird, he shouldn't be able to recognize—oh. That's right, I'm practically his twin._

As for Kaito, "a little surprised" did not nearly cut it. More like "shocked out of his skull", maybe. Even with the benefit of ten extra years, Kudou should have been an old man, if he was even alive at all. For a moment, he wondered if maybe he was mistaking someone else for—nope. One glance back down made that only too obvious. That was, with absolute certainty, the same young face from his memories of heists. The same eyes that looked too old.

Kaito suddenly realized that he had been staring. That was a perfectly normal reaction to seeing an eighty-year-old (well, technically ninety-year-old) ghost, right? He settled back into an unreadable grin and held out his hand.

"I'm Kuroba Kaito, nice to meet you."

Kudou eyed the offered hand warily. "Conan," he said shortly, taking it.

Kaito raised an eyebrow. He really had to wonder why Kudou was still bothering to keep up the charade. Why the glasses? And he could have easily changed his alias back to his real name, if he wanted, even if he had to choose a different family name.

"Now Tantei-kun, I was nice enough to give you _my_ true name," said Kaito softly. "And at this point, it's probably been long enough since we last used a real name that it really doesn't matter anymore."

Kudou's head snapped up to look at him. It only took a moment for comprehension to dawn. But there was also fear in the not-child's eyes. _So that's why, maybe?_ thought Kaito. _He's afraid to be without the masks…_

"_How?_" spluttered Kudou.

"Don't tell me you've forgotten your real name, Tantei-kun!" Kaito conjured up Kid's old smirk. He hadn't worn it for half a century, but it still slipped on like a glove.

Kudou glared daggers at him. "That's not what I meant."

"You meant what fountain of youth did _I_ fall into? Magical gemstones. You?"

For a moment, Kudou almost looked like he was about to scoff at the idea of a gem being "magic". How stubborn could you get? But he sighed, and simply said, "Experimental poison."

Kaito looked down at him and hid his surprise. "Someone tried to poison you? I'm assuming that's why you lost a few years in the first place?" A nod. "Well, I thought _my_ life was ironic." He allowed the tiniest bit of bitterness to enter his voice, and turned to look back at the tower.

There was a long pause before either of them spoke.

"You stopped doing heists a long time ago."

"I found what I was looking for and accomplished what I needed to," stated Kaito simply.

Another pause.

"But they were almost fun, you know? Much more interesting than solving murders all the time, anyway."

Kaito smiled a little. "Yes. They were fun." Not all of his memories were bad. He suspected that the heists would always be the greatest moments of his life, no matter how long it lasted, which was saying something.

"Kid?"

"You can call me Kaito."

"Kaito then. If you stopped doing heists, then what have you been doing?" Kaito looked back down, a little surprised.

"Well…" He hesitated. "Wandering, I guess. I can't stay in any one place very long, after all."

"Because people would notice…" Kudou finished the thought. His tone spoke of decades of having to deal with the same issue.

"Exactly."

"By yourself?"

Kaito was definitely surprised by that question. Not that he showed it. Not that he ever showed it. He sat on a nearby bench and stretched out his legs in front of him. "Of course. Who else would be with me? I didn't even think there was anyone else who was like this."

Kudou was giving him that searching look, but it turned pensive. "That must be difficult."

"But aren't you in the same situation—?" Kaito frowned, but Kudou shook his head.

"I have a friend that's like me."

"Oh." Kaito wasn't even sure if he even knew what it was to have a friend anymore. The idea was like one of the memories, far off and long gone.

Tantei-kun appeared to be hesitating, but he eventually said, "If you ever want to, you could drop by sometime. We're back in my, well, the old Kudou house, probably for the next couple of years."

Kaito smiled a little. "That… might be nice, actually. Should I send you a notice to tell you when I'll drop by for dinner?"

Kudou laughed and moved closer to the bench. "Sure. It'll be nice to have some company besides Haibara for a change. It's a deal then?" He stuck out his hand.

Kaito took it and gave it a brief shake. "It's a deal. And Kudou? …Thank you."

Kudou grinned back at him and released his hand. "You looked like you needed a friend. I'll be seeing you." And with that, he turned and continued on his way.

Kaito watched him go and then looked back up at the clock tower above him. Perhaps there were still some surprises to be found here. Smiling a genuine smile for the first time in years, he got up and walked away, already plotting how best to write a riddle "dinner notice".

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A/N: I actually really like how this turned out. This was actually somewhat inspired by the prologue of Mayonaka (go read it, it's amazing). I was reminded of the clock tower, and just started to write angsty!Kaito at the clock tower. It morphed into Kaito, Conan, and Ai all being immortal, which I thought was pretty cool. I've seen fics where Kaito became immortal, and I've seen some where Conan, or both Conan and Ai stay kids forever, but I had never seen anything where all three of them get dropped in the fountain of youth.

Hope you enjoyed reading this. Please review!


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